Posted on 02/09/2008 8:31:37 PM PST by blam
Babies reveal natural gift for numbers
09 February 2008
From New Scientist Print Edition.
They may seem to just eat, cry, sleep and poo, but 3-month-old babies may already be aware of how many animals are dangling from their mobiles. Véronique Izard at the University of Paris-South in France and her colleagues have discovered that babies have brain circuits dedicated to noticing quantity, adding weight to the argument that humans possess an innate sense of numbers.
Izard had already shown in adults and 4-year-olds that numbers seem to be processed in a particular part of the brain, and separately from other information. To find out if 3-month-old babies did the same, the team fitted 36 infants with caps designed to record their brain waves.
The babies were then shown a series of images on a screen. Most of the time consistent objects and quantities appeared, for instance, four ducks. Occasionally, though, either the number or the object would be changed, and researchers recorded changes in their brain activity in response. Like adults, the babies processed changes in the identity of the object in a different part of the brain to changes in number (PLoS Biology, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060011).
The Human Brain - With one hundred billion nerve cells, the complexity is mind-boggling. Learn more in our cutting edge special report.
From issue 2642 of New Scientist magazine, 09 February 2008, page 20
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
Only if they survive their mother's pregancy.
How?
I count to 20 playing "Hide and Go Seek" with my children. He picked it up by playing with the rest of us. Now, when I put things in front of him and start counting, he points and counts, too!
Unfortunately, the three-month-old babies grow up to be college students, and somewhere along the line lose all that innate math ability.
Non-science majors are lucky if they can do percentages.
Good for you and your child. Early mental exercises are good for you child.
It occurs to me that the brains of babies at three months of age are likely still maturing into fully functioning entities. The idea that they are still wiring themselves to become fully functional seems logical to me. Is it possible that concentrated neural testing at that age with numbers could cause physiological anomolies to occur?
Could optimal outcomes being percieved to be the more desired response, does this overtax the kids triggering some reconfiguration based on that perception? I may not be wording this properly, but it does occur to me that these kids should probably be allowed to mature naturally without being pushed into this type of activity just 12 weeks after birth.
I prodded my child at an early age. He has a PhD in physics that seemed to come fairly easy for him.
At twelve weeks? Most folks who went that route when kids were young twenty years or so ago were beginning to push them at one or two years of age. When did you start?
Mine were excellent at #1 and #2.
Forty years ago now...I don't remember what age my son was but, young.
Okay, just wondering. Thanks Blam.
Yeah, but how does he do with the chicks? ;^)
btt
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